What's everyone using to sequence drums?

[dchurch24]

Hi all,

I've been using Hydrogen for years now, but it#s just getting increasingly buggy and playing ball less and less with Jack, so I'm looking for an alternative.

What are you all using. and can you integrate it with Jack (and subsequently Ardour)?

[Impostor]

Hi all,

I've been using Hydrogen for years now, but it#s just getting increasingly buggy and playing ball less and less with Jack, so I'm looking for an alternative.

What are you all using. and can you integrate it with Jack (and subsequently Ardour)?

There's Sfizz for loading drumkit sfz's. Has plugin versions too. But H2 increasingly buggy with Jack? Not at all my experience..

Maybe this:
https://github.com/hydrogen-music/hydrogen/pull/1926

[dchurch24]

Cheers, I'll give that a try.

...but, yeah, if it's not the Jack Master it simply doesn't stay in time - which is no problem, I'll make it the master, but then Ardour keeps "stealing" it bac if you move the playhead when playing back etc...
if you route it through Ardour and Ardour tries to steal back being the master, then you don't get any sound any more - but it will still record if you arm the track. It's all very weird. This is the third machine in a row with this behaviour, and I spoke to the developer who kind of gave some advice about keeping it in sync (basically, as far as I could tell, keep making it the Jack Master).

[Impostor]

Cheers, I'll give that a try.

...but, yeah, if it's not the Jack Master it simply doesn't stay in time - which is no problem, I'll make it the master, but then Ardour keeps "stealing" it bac if you move the playhead when playing back etc...
if you route it through Ardour and Ardour tries to steal back being the master, then you don't get any sound any more - but it will still record if you arm the track. It's all very weird. This is the third machine in a row with this behaviour, and I spoke to the developer who kind of gave some advice about keeping it in sync (basically, as far as I could tell, keep making it the Jack Master).

You could also drive H2 via midi, that way you won't depend on Jack Transport for synchronization. If Ardour packs a midi drum pattern editor that could be an option..

[dchurch24]

You could also drive H2 via midi, that way you won't depend on Jack Transport for synchronization. If Ardour packs a midi drum pattern editor that could be an option..

Hi, cheers. I have tried that in the past, and whilst it does have a midi editor, I find it quite awful to use, and much prefer the H2 editor (in fact it's the only drum "machine" editor I've ever been able to get on with - it just makes perfect sense).

I'll have a play around. Maybe it'll be fixed at some point, although it's been this way for a little while now, so I'm not all that hopeful.

[Impostor]

You could also drive H2 via midi, that way you won't depend on Jack Transport for synchronization. If Ardour packs a midi drum pattern editor that could be an option..

Hi, cheers. I have tried that in the past, and whilst it does have a midi editor, I find it quite awful to use, and much prefer the H2 editor (in fact it's the only drum "machine" editor I've ever been able to get on with - it just makes perfect sense).

I'll have a play around. Maybe it'll be fixed at some point, although it's been this way for a little while now, so I'm not all that hopeful.

Been playing around a bit, and I have a problem with H2 being transport slave when the tempo of the master changes. Sounds as if the patterns are played doubly after a tempo change...may be worth a bug report.

[dchurch24]

I'm finding it difficult to actually pinpoint the issue at the moment mind you. Sometimes it's fine, other times it's not. I'd need to be able to give definite steps to recreate it.

[Michael Willis]

If you want to use sfizz for drums, here's a kit that I put together from the tchackpoum samples:

https://github.com/michaelwillis/tchimera-drum-kit

In Ardour, make a midi track, you can call it "percussion". Then make five midi busses: kick, snare, toms, hihat, overhead. Route the track to all of the busses, make each bus run its own instance of sfizz, and load the corresponding sfz file into each sfizz instance. This will allow you to mix them differently (for example, you want more sizzle on the hihat or more snap to the snare). Have fun.

Edit: Please note that http://tchackpoum.fr/ has lots of samples. I used mostly different ones than @JamesPeters used in his Tchackpoum Kit for DrumGizmo, so these two kits sound quite different.

Edit again: sfizz-multi is now supported, and the readme explains how to use it. Also renamed to Tchimera Drum Kit

[Michael Willis]

@dchurch24, if you weren't aware of this before, DrumGizmo is a great tool. It's not a sequencer, so you have to use the midi sequencing feature in your DAW, but some of the kits for DrumGizmo are great fun.

[Impostor]

If you want to use sfizz for drums, here's a kit that I put together from the tchackpoum samples:

https://github.com/michaelwillis/tchackpoum-sfz

In Ardour, make a midi track, you can call it "percussion". Then make five midi busses: kick, snare, toms, hihat, overhead. Route the track to all of the busses, make each bus run its own instance of sfizz, and load the corresponding sfz file into each sfizz instance. This will allow you to mix them differently (for example, you want more sizzle on the hihat or more snap to the snare). Have fun.

Can't you create a single sfz with multiple audio channels?

From https://docs.cycling74.com/max8/refpages/sfizz~

outputs [int] (default: 2)
Sets the number of audio output channels. The minimum is 2 and the maximum is 1024. If you want more than the default stereo outputs, the Sfz file can specify a stereo output pair for a sample or region of samples using the output opcode. A value of 0 for the output opcode means output channels 1 and 2 in the sfizz~ object. output 1 uses channels 3 and 4. If you created an object with 1024 audio output channels, the highest allowable value of the output opcode would be 511 (for channels 1023 and 1024). With any larger value of the outputs attribute you'll want to use the mcs.sfizz~ object that combines all outputs into a single multi-channel patch cord.

[dchurch24]

@Michael Willis Thank you very much. I'll give that a go.

I do still prefer the layout and interface of Hydrogen, but something just isn't right with the synching. Everything feels ever so slightly out of time.

[Linuxmusician01]

I'm finding it difficult to actually pinpoint the issue at the moment mind you. Sometimes it's fine, other times it's not. I'd need to be able to give definite steps to recreate it.

I experienced those problems years ago in Hydrogen. I thought is was because didn't configure Jack tempo master/slave correctly. I gave up on Hydrogen..., maybe for the wrong reasons...

[Impostor]

There's also Speedrum. Full version includes a step sequencer.

[Impostor]

I'm finding it difficult to actually pinpoint the issue at the moment mind you. Sometimes it's fine, other times it's not. I'd need to be able to give definite steps to recreate it.

I experienced those problems years ago in Hydrogen. I thought is was because didn't configure Jack tempo master/slave correctly. I gave up on Hydrogen..., maybe for the wrong reasons... :?:

There's no reason to give up on it when it's still in active development. There've been many updates the past couple of years, so chances are that many bugs of years ago have been fixed already.

[Michael Willis]

Can't you create a single sfz with multiple audio channels?

Wow, looks like you can. I think I'll update my project to implement a single sfz file, with instructions about how to route the channels.